Thai villagers line up to vote in Narathiwat province on Feb. 2, 2014. / AFP/Getty Images

by Thomas Maresca, Special for USA TODAY

by Thomas Maresca, Special for USA TODAY

BANGKOK - Voting in Thailand's general election Sunday was disrupted by anti-government protesters who barricaded roads and blocked access to polling stations at several locations in Bangkok and southern provinces.

The election took place under a shadow of violence after a gunbattle in Bangkok on Saturday wounded seven people. Clashes during last weekend's early voting left one protest leader dead and several others injured.

On Sunday, the atmosphere was less explosive than many had feared. A skirmish broke out at a polling station in Din Daeng district when a group of people attempting to vote surged forward and were met by anti-government forces. Bottles were thrown and a shot was fired into the air.

After the polls closed, the Election Commission of Thailand reported that 89% of polling places had been operating nationwide. In Bangkok, more than 92% of the capital's 6,600 polling sites had been open.

At one polling site that was shut down near Victory Monument in Ratchathewi district, volunteers recorded the names of would-be voters on scraps of paper. One man, Surachart Kasemwong, was holding a police report that he filled out after discovering his polling station was empty. "I want to do this so I can maintain my election rights," he said.

Another would-be voter, Ampha Nikwong, 65, had been hoping to cast her ballot for hours. "We're upset we can't vote," she said, waving her national identification card in the air. "We can't let a small minority dictate the election."

A nearby polling station in Phaya Thai district was open, but turnout appeared low in the early afternoon. One man, Pracob Cooparat, wore a T-shirt with the red, white and blue colors of the Thai flag, which has become the symbol of the protest movement. He said he was there to observe but not to vote.

"Voting would legitimize the corrupt government," he said. "I support democracy, but not for a corrupt government. In Bangkok, (voters) are the more informed, the more educated, the middle class. They don't want to legitimize the government."

Yingluck denies that she has tolerated corruption in her government and says she is fighting to maintain the rule of democracy.

The results of the election, which was boycotted by the opposition Democrat Party, will not be known immediately, according to the Election Commission, because of the blocked polling sites and the disruption of advance voting last weekend.

The disrupted voting Sunday meant that the election was not able to fill the 95% of lower house seats needed for Parliament to convene and form a new government. To fill seats in districts where voting was blocked, a first round of balloting is scheduled for Feb. 23.

Verapat Pariyawong, a Thai legal scholar, said he expects the Democrat Party to petition the Constitutional Court to nullify the election. Even so, he called the election one of the most important in Thai history.

"A large turnout, despite many challenges and fears, will pressure the powerful institutions such as the military and the courts to think twice before acting against the people's will," he said.

Turnout figures were not immediately available.

It was a military coup that removed former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra from power in 2006. And in 2008, Thailand's Constitutional Court dissolved the People's Power Party (PPP), composed primarily of Thaksin allies, over charges of electoral fraud.

The opposition charges that the government is heavily corrupt and still under the control of Thaksin, who is Yingluck's brother. He has lived in Dubai since being convicted of criminal corruption in 2008.

The protesters, led by a group called the People's Democratic Reform Committee, are calling to replace the government with a "People's Assembly," a non-elected council of leaders from different professions who would institute a series of reforms before an election could be held.

Opposition leader Suthep Thaugsuban, a former Democrat Party politician, told a crowd of supporters Saturday night, "We are not voting tomorrow because we want reform before election. We are not voting tomorrow because we reject the Thaksin regime."

The anti-government protests, which have been going on for more than three months, have left 10 people dead and almost 600 wounded. Many major intersections in Bangkok have been occupied by protesters in tents and are closed to traffic. Organizers have set up stages for live music and speeches, and streets are lined with vendors selling protest-related merchandise such as T-shirts, earrings and whistles.

With Sunday's election sure to meet legal challenges, and more voting to come, there is little sense that Thailand's political impasse will be resolved any time soon.

Thitinan Pongsudhirak, director of the Institute of Security and International Studies at Chulalongkorn University, said that despite the many problems in Thai politics, the fact that the election took place was a hopeful sign.

"Today was a step forward for Thailand to maintain electoral democracy," he said Sunday. "Today happened. It was imperfect, but better. If today did not happen, it would have been much worse."